The TVAD Research Group, based in the School of Creative Arts at the University of Hertfordshire, researches relationships between text, narrative and image. We publish books, journal articles, host a double-blind peer-reviewed journal, Writing Visual Culture (previously Working Papers on Design) and host events including international conferences.

Friday, 19 June 2015

“Between Texts and Cities” was prompted by a suggestion by Grace Lees-Maffei that
Michael Heilgemeir and I guest-edit an issue of Writing Visual Culture, the journal of the TVAD research group. The
issue is part of our joint project Texts+Cities,
an exploration of the relations between texts and urban spaces in contemporary
societies. We both have a keen interest in contemporary cities and urban
issues: Michael’s book The Nomadic Studio
explores temporary
artist-led spaces and their role within the redevelopment of cities, and my
research is on urban regeneration, focusing on London Docklands and the
Greenwich Peninsula.

Fig. 1: Michael Heilgemeir (2013): The Nomadic Studio.

Our
first Texts+Cities activity was the
seminar Texts/Cities: From the 1970s to
the Present,
which took place at the University of Hertfordshire in January 2014. In conceiving the seminar, Michael and
I were guided by a number of questions:

·How do urban spaces relate to artistic,
political, or economic texts and ideologies, and vice-versa?

·What transformations occur between the
designing and imaging of urban spaces, and the building and eventual inhabiting
of those spaces?

·How
do the technologies employed in designing and imaging architectural and urban
spaces (computer modelling and simulation, CGI renderings of future buildings,
etc.) contribute to the ‘idea’ or representations of a city?

·In
what ways can Big Data, New Media, and Imaging Technologies influence
understanding of, and policies within cities?

The
exploratory nature of the seminar enabled us to identify the central issues on
which to focus, and the present issue of Writing
Visual Culture springs from that process. Our call for papers for the issue
produced responses from scholars within an interdisciplinary range of humanities,
social sciences, art, design, and media practices.

The
seven contributions in “Between Texts and Cities” were selected from abstracts
received from the UK, the USA, Belgium, Canada, Germany, India, Malaysia,
Russia, and South Africa. Our imaginations were sparked by their themes: cityscapes
of exclusion; liminal, interstitial spaces between city and country; places of
refuge for sexual and racial minorities; modernist utopian designs ill-equipped
to respond to the dynamics of contemporary Capitalism; imagined cities that
amplified traits of existing ones to the point of entropy.

These
all related to the concerns outlined in our call for papers. However, the
variety of approaches and the specificities of some of their cultural and
geographical settings required us to contextualise them very carefully in
relation to our project. In this we benefited enormously from our conversations
with Susan Parham, Head of Urbanism at the Centre for Sustainable Communities
here at the University of Hertfordshire. Susan’s comments and advice were
always given in a spirit of openness and generosity, and we enjoyed immensely
working with her.

I
invite readers (shameless plug alert!) to have a look at the Introduction to
the issue, which sets out a context for the papers within the thematic scope of
the Texts+Cities project. That
context invokes the literal and metaphorical ruins of Modernism’s urban
utopias, and the emergence of a new political and economic configuration in the
wake of the structural crises of Capitalism of the 1970s. Naturally, such
context, “narrative arc” even, is only one of many possible contexts, and we welcome
debate on alternative ways of reading this issue.

A
final note on the issue: there are two versions of “Between Texts and Cities”
on the TVAD website. The first version follows the prevailing model of digital
delivery in journal publishing, whereby journal articles within an issue can be
accessed individually as pdfs. If you need to print an individual article,
that’s the place to go (mind the trees!).

In
addition to this, we have brought all the papers together in a single volume,
soon to be uploaded on the WVC site. Michael designed and produced photographs
for the volume, which is designed to be read/viewed/studied/devoured on
screens/tablets. This second version aims to preserve the papers’ place in the
wider context of the issue (that “narrative arc”), and emphasise the dialogue
between the articles. We also intend it to explore a bit more the visual side
we have always felt is a strong aspect of the Texts+Cities project, in an attractive publication that hopefully
will help us communicate the project in future activities.

Reframing Spaces is an exhibition designed to illuminate
some current issues around pedagogy and to share different approaches to
practice led by staff in the School of Creative Arts, at the University of Hertfordshire, including TVAD researchers. Acknowledging
that education is constructed within a context of performativity, the
work explores how limiting frames can be challenged to enable students
to engage wholeheartedly in learning. Staff can create spaces and use
materials to enable students to reframe their expectations and
understandings of how they will engage in learning in the creative arts.
Materials that have been developed and used with students will be
available for critique.

Reframing Spaces identifies that spaces themselves may need to be reframed if staff are to collaborate to create a rich learning environment for students. Dialogic spaces for colleagues to share and mutually challenge ways of thinking and acting are essential for professional learning. The exhibition shows three approaches to using non-traditional spaces and approaches to enable staff to engage in dialogue and construction together. Research, scholarship and critical reflection on pedagogy are shown in the exhibition in visual form.

The exhibition itself brings into the public space an account of emerging, difficult-to-quantify change in professional practice. Making visible the work in this new way offers opportunities for the learning community to continue to shape its own agenda around the development of practice and to provoke others to do the same. Reframing Spaces Exhibition Tours
Colleagues interested in the development of learning and teaching are invited to participate in tours of the exhibition led by staff members including Rebecca Thomas (exhibition curator) Ivan Philips, Associate Dean Learning and Teaching in the School of Creative Arts, and Joy Jarvis, Professor of Educational Practice. Participants will be able to discuss the approaches to L&T development represented and the resources being created for induction, and consider any connections with their own work and context.
Exhibition Tour Times:
Tuesday 23rd June, 9.30, 11.30, 2.30 and 6.00
Wednesday 24th June, 4.30 and 6.00
Thursday 25th June. 2.30 and 4.30
Venue: Art and Design Gallery.

Tuesday, 16 June 2015

Call for Participation

Led
by renowned comic writers Leah and Alan Moore, The Electricomics
project launched in May 2014 with funding from The Digital R&D Fund
for the Arts. Now, as the project nears the conclusion of its initial
research and development stage, we seek to establish a new academic
symposium through which to share our findings and expand discussion and
debate around the field of digital comics research.

The Comic Electric: A Digital Comics Symposium will be held at The University of Hertfordshire on Wednesday 14th
October 2015. As part of this symposium participants are sought to
present papers across a wide range of topics that relate to comics
scholarship and digital media. Appropriate subject areas include:

New and emergent digital comic forms and technologies.

Changes to the underlying structures of the form as a result of digital mediation.

Crossovers, adaptation and hybridisation between comics and other digital media.

Acts of reading and the impact of digital mediation.

Aesthetic and literary analysis of digital comic narratives.

Digital distribution, changes in the industry and the threat of piracy.

Other
areas relevant to the study of digital comics will also be considered.
Abstracts of no more than 300 words for papers of 20 minutes in length
should be submitted via e-mail to Daniel Merlin Goodbrey and Alison
Gazzard at electric@e-merl.com
by Monday 27th July 2015. If you have any questions about the symposium
or need clarification on any aspect of this call for participation,
please also contact us via the above e-mail address.

About Electricomics

The
focus of the Electricomics project has been the creation of a new
digital comic anthology app and an open source toolkit for the creation
of digital comics. Towards this goal, the project has examined how the
language, tropes and production processes of traditional comics are
impacted by digital technologies. Our research has also explored how an
easy to use and openly available toolset might facilitate content
creation both in the comics sector and amongst a wider arts community.

Electricomics
is collaborative project between arts, technology and research
partners. Arts partner Orphans of The Storm was founded by comic writer
Alan Moore and film director and producer Mitch Jenkins. Technology
partner Ocasta studios are responsible for the creation of the
Electricomics app and comic creation toolset. The research partners on
the project are Alison Gazzard from the London Knowledge Lab at the UCL
Institute of Education and Daniel Merlin Goodbrey from the University of
Hertfordshire’s School of Creative Arts.

The Comic Electric
is a joint symposium between three of the School of Creative Art’s
research groups; TVAD (Theorising Visual Arts and Design), G+VERL (Games
and Visual Effects Research Lab) and The Media Research Group. It is
held in conjunction with the DARE (Digital Arts Research Education)
research centre at the UCL Institute of Education.

About the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts

The
Digital R&D fund for the Arts is a £7 million fund to support
collaboration between organisations with arts projects, technology
providers, and researchers. It is a partnership between Arts Council
England (www.artscouncil.org.uk), Arts and Humanities Research Council (www.ahrc.ac.uk) and Nesta (www.nesta.org.uk).

We
want to see projects that use digital technology to enhance audience
reach and/or develop new business models for the arts sector. With a
dedicated researcher or research team as part of the three-way
collaboration, learning from the project can be captured and
disseminated to the wider arts sector. Every project needs to identify a
particular question or problem that can be tested. Importantly this
question needs to generate knowledge for other arts organisations that
they can apply to their own digital strategies.